A contact center may employ a large number of customer service representatives (CSR), customer service advisors (CSA) or similar personnel generally referred to herein as agents. Agents interact with customers to provide services, e.g., answers to inquiries, performing transactions, selling products or services and the like. Agents in a modern contact center may be required to provide information, complete transactions and solve problems related to a large number of services and products as well as be able to operate a large number, in times complicated, computer applications. Agents traditionally use phones in order to interact with customers and workstations in order to access customer or other data, e.g., in a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Since providing a good and timely service to a customer is an essential element in a success of a contact center, agents may further be required to perform tasks such as mentioned above in real time, e.g., while talking or otherwise interacting with a client or a potential customer.
To assist agents, supervisors and/or experts (S&E) are employed. An expert or supervisor may have extended knowledge, skills, expertise, privileges and/or other capabilities regarding services provided by the contact center and/or applications or systems that need to be operated. Typically, upon encountering a problem or difficulty, an agent may call or alert an expert for assistance. In other cases, a supervisor may join a session or interaction between an agent and a customer in order to monitor or evaluate performance of an agent, quality of service, work flow or any relevant aspects related to an operation of the contact center. In other cases, an expert may join an interaction or session in order to train an agent. Currently, when joining a session or interaction, e.g., a phone call, an expert may be able to hear the agent and/or customer as well as be heard by the agent only, or by both the agent and customer. However, by merely joining a voice interaction or channel, the expert may not be provided with sufficient information that may be necessary in order to best assist the agent and/or the customer, or cause the best conclusion or outcome of an interaction or session.
For example, in joining a session or interaction as done by prior art, an expert is not provided with information related to the customer, the product or service discussed nor with information related to the agent. Although enabling an expert to join a voice session or call using a mobile phone, with this enablement prior art systems and methods do not provide the expert with information related to the customer, the product or service or the agent nor information or data related to the session so that the expert may be aware of the development, context or history of the session or interaction. For example, the expert can not see the screen of the agent's workstation nor have access to stored information, e.g., in a CRM system. Using a desktop or workstation, an expert may have access to relevant information. However, in such scenario the expert is confined to his or her desk and further may be required to use two devices, a phone for participating in a call and a workstation for accessing information. Furthermore, as experts in a contact center typically need to be mobile, using a stationary computer may be an inadequate solution.
It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity. Further, where considered appropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements.